


Ophiucus the Fallen

by Athenai89



Category: Saint Seiya, Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-09
Updated: 2016-11-02
Packaged: 2018-04-03 15:00:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 16,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4105141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Athenai89/pseuds/Athenai89
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They had a piece of her heart and she had a piece of theirs and for this reason she was dangerous. The only thing to do was to disgrace her in their eyes so the only thing they would see would be: Ophiucus the Fallen. A story between the Original Series and the Lost Canvas</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own the characters of Saint Seiya and Saint Seiya: Lost Canvas who belong to their respective owners, but everyone else, unless otherwise specified, is my personal baby!  
> The places described are real and very beautiful so if you have a chance, go see them!  
> The character may be (some definitely) are OOC but, alas, my view of them may not coincide always with yours. If you don't like then don't read the story.  
> Constructive criticism is appreciated but please no flames!  
> Enjoy and review if you want!  
> A89

“Si può sapere dove sei finita rincitrullita di un’oca giuliva????”  
Cancer no Death Mask wasn’t an elegant man. Not in his beautifully divine – his words – boyfriend’s opinion, not in everybody else’s opinion, let alone his own.  
No, the Cancer Saint lacked that finesse, that savoir faire, that …something, that made everybody else look and act like decent human beings except for him.  
He was, to use his boyfriend’s, Pisces no Aphrodite, words, a barbaric brute with the eyes of a devil and a soul to match. And that, was perfectly fine with him!  
That was the reason why he was in his house – completely devoid of the thousands of masks that dwelled there, a permanent memento of his less than just approach to Athena’s brand of divine justice – in nothing but his underwear, with a cigarette already at his lips, yelling for what could have been a stupid goose, but in reality was a young girl that usually shared the gloomy atmosphere of the Fourth House with him and was used to bake the most excellent cakes first thing in the morning.  
But that morning, for the first time in years Death Mask of Cancer found no freshly baked cakes on his table. Nothing, nada, zilch… and what was worse, not even a single trace of the girl that was supposed to have made them.  
“Helena! Come out this instant before I decide to Sekishiki your sorry ass into the next world and leave you there!”  
“Like you don’t do exactly that every couple of days Death Mask!”  
“Do not interfere in businesses that aren’t yours overgrown sheep!”  
The emeraldine eyes of Aries no Mu sparkled in the soft morning light taking no offence to the seemingly insulting words of his fellow Saint. He had long ago discovered that, under the mask there was an astonishing good man. The only problem was that you had to dig deep enough to find him and, before the Hades debacle, nobody had really had any wish to see what was under the strong armour of the Karkinos Saint.  
But he had sacrificed himself for Athena, alongside everybody else, to allow the Bronze Saints access to Elysium and when they were all brought back by Athena’s intervention, everyone of them had tried a little harder to discover what the Golden Crab had hidden out of sight.  
Much of the merit of the discovery of the fluffy side of Death Mask could have been given to the exact same girl that the Sicilian was yelling for and that, apparently, had decided to make herself scarce that morning.  
A strange occurrence, thought the Aries Saint. Not the disappearing act, that happened often enough that nobody was really worried anymore – who wouldn’t disappear if they had to live with the moody Cancer Saint? – but the fact that said girl had disappeared before breakfast and without his knowledge.  
After all he was the guardian of the First Temple and nobody could slip in and out of Sanctuary without, if not his permission, at least his knowledge.  
“She hasn’t gone down to the Arena, of that I am sure, so she might have gone up! I am going to the Pope, if you want we can ascend together in order to look for her…”  
He had purposely left the phrase open, not wanting to crowd his companion, whose hatred for company was legendary! Again, how could the girl live with such a misanthropist was a question that had no answer anywhere in Sanctuary. Everybody had offered her a place to stay, she had even her own house, but she spent more time at Cancer’s than anywhere else and she wasn’t going to budge on that issue.  
“Che palle! Fine agnellino I’ll come with you upwards, but when I find her you can bet your pretty little golden hammer that I’ll make her pay the affront of going up without any breakfast!”  
“If you really are that hungry I’ve got coffee and biscuits on the table so, feel free to join me…”  
“Not even if you were the last possible meal available on Earth, Sea Lizard!”  
Apparently the Cancer Saint had not yet forgotten the mouldy and overall disgusting things that the younger Gemini had passed for cookies the last time he had invited them to have tea in his house.  
He personally thought that those things would have been disgusting even after being deprived of the sense of taste by the resident Buddha and the Sicilian had had no problem at all voicing his opinion to the house master that had, obviously, responded in kind, thus risking the infamous “Thousand days war”.  
Only the timely intervention of Aphrodite’s poisonous roses and the Pope’s own threat of sending them into Another Dimension had prevented bloodshed so soon after their rebirth.  
Wisely deciding not to take offence at the other’s less than gracious answer, Gemini no Kanon, formerly known as Sea Dragon, took a look around, hoping to see the only saving grace of the scorbutic Saint in front of him.  
“Oi old man! Where’s lovely Helena this morning? Did you send her to the Underworld again?”  
“The fact that I have naturally silver hair, doesn’t make me automatically an old man, ciuriddu! And no, I haven’t seen lovely Helena at all this morning and we were just about to go look for her, before being rudely interrupted!”  
The only thing preventing the blue haired man from disintegrating him on the spot were the pleading eyes that the Aries was giving him from behind Cancer. That and the fact the he really didn’t know how he could have justified himself in front of his brother the Pope and Athena, for killing a fellow Saint for no apparent reason at all except the fact the he was being an ass.  
“Mind if I join you then?”  
“Does this look like a party to you eh?”  
Not minding the Karkinos’ attitude at all the Gemini Saint joined Mu and Death Mask in their search for their missing companion.  
A search that turned out empty both at the Fifth and the Sixth House were Leo no Aiolia and Virgo no Shaka admitted to not having seen the young woman that morning. But if the young lion had admitted to being otherwise preoccupied, at those words Kanon could not stop himself from snickering at the embarrassed look that had graced the Leo, the reincarnation of Buddha had told them that he had been meditating all night so if anybody had traversed his house he would have known immediately.  
Starting to worry a little for the missing young woman the five men traversed quickly the Seventh and Eight Houses – the young again Dokho was at Goro Ho again to finally settling all ties there and live permanently at Sanctuary, while they knew that Scorpio no Milo could be found at the Eleventh House alongside his algid protector – before finally entering the Ninth House, the Sagittarius House, hoping against everything that their young friend had decided to stop at the Ninth to have a chat with Aioros, simply skipping the other houses by using the secret passages.  
But the bewildered look of an Aioros unceremoniously dumped out of bed by Death Mask’s yells had their hearts sink a little because so few houses were left and the feeling of dread had grown in their stomachs.  
The Tenth House was empty as well but the slip of paper left by the door told everyone that the Gold Saint presiding it had been called up by Athena so the group proceeded and speedily advanced toward the Eleventh House.  
“What do you mean you cannot find her?? What did you do to her Death Mask???”  
“Listen you filthy bug, if you do not want me to personally refresh your memory of Hell I suggest you keep those thoughts to yourself and stop accusing me of something that you know perfectly well I will never do!”  
“He is right Milo! It was rude of you to jump to conclusions and blame Death Mask for Helena’s disappearance!”  
“But Camus, where could she have gone? You know she disappears only if she’s had a fight with him or Aphrodite!”  
“Death Mask is right! They didn’t have a fallout yesterday or I would have heard them since they are right on my doorstep, but she might still be at Dite’s, or she could have had a fallout with him so we better ask him quickly!”  
And with that the Gemini Saint pivoted towards the door that led to the last of the Twelve Houses, the Pisces House whose protector, in the middle of a facial with freshly cut cucumbers on his eyes, had such a meltdown at the news of the girl’s disappearance that his fellow Gold Saints thought they were going to die, poisoned by the beautiful roses that Aphrodite kept in his house.  
The only thing that saved them from certain death had been the luminous Cosmo of their Goddess that had beckoned them towards the last temple.  
“Is it true then? Has she disappeared?”  
They hadn’t even took a single step inside the great hall that the booming and very worried voice of the Taurus Saint had asked them the very question that they were all dreading to answer.  
“Yes Aldebaran, she is missing, but she might have gone to stay with Seiya a bit maybe…”  
The little sparkle of hope that the Aries Saint had managed to put inside the last sentence was readily crushed by the Capricorn Saint who had motioned no with his head, promptly followed by their Goddess’ voice.  
“She isn’t there Mu, I have already checked with everyone of the Bronze Saints, they haven’t seen her in weeks. I really don’t know where she could be.”  
“If that is the case Athena, then I think we might be of some help…”  
A new, deep voice, had entered the hall and the surprise that all had felt in knowing that a possible enemy had infiltrated Sanctuary all turned into dread when they saw who had entered the sacred grounds.  
“What are you doing here Rhadamantys????”


	2. Chapter 2

Cold and iron. Dust and blood.  
This was the aftertaste she had in her mouth. Aftertaste of what she couldn’t remember. All she knew is that her head was pounding like never before and her muscles were sore, like when she sleeps under the stars, without the protection and the softness of a proper bed.  
The air she breathed felt stale and the light she saw was somehow muted.  
She tried to stand but an ominous jingling was all she heard before collapsing down on her knees again, eyes adjusting to the absence of light in which they saw the chains that bound her hands and feet to the wall.  
“Where am I? Who am I?”  
The answers weren’t as forthcoming as the questions. She knew that something was missing, something big that she had better remember before doing something regrettable, but that missing piece of the puzzle was playing hide ‘n seek with her.  
Another jingle, this time of keys in a lock, alerted her of someone’s approach. She hoped they were allies and not enemies – when did she start thinking about people in those terms and not simply like friends or not friends? – but she knew that in both cases they held the answers to all her questions and the possibility of filling the gap that seemed permanently etched in her brain was grater that the fear that they could do something unfathomable to her.  
Heavy steps drawing closer. Two sets, meaning two people.  
Another jingle, this time closer, her door. The creepy creaking of metal junctures rarely used resonated in the silence like a thousand trumpets.  
“Your meal, beast!”  
And with that the threw the plate inside, water sloshing in the cup and what she could only describe as sbobba – where did that word come from? – smashing onto the pavement in front of her.  
Why? Why were they this cruel? What had she done to them? For the life of Athena – who did refer to the ancient Gods anymore? – she could not remember anything!  
“Eat that like the beast you are and be thankful our Mistress doesn’t want anymore death on her young shoulders or you wouldn’t even be here, Ophiucus the Fallen!”  
Ophiucus the Fallen…a name, a definition, something ominous stirred in the back of her mind.   
Traitor! Beast! Child of the Devil! Snake!  
Everything now was coming back to her! Every sensation, every thought, every hit she had taken, and every evil she had committed.  
Her mind couldn’t take it anymore and darkness welcomed her in her lovely embrace.

She dreamt of long stairs and longer corridors, of beautiful gardens of roses and creepy death masks on bloody walls, of long blond hair of a youth in a lotus position and sparkly brown eyes of a young man chasing his brother.  
She dreamt of people she didn’t recognize, apparently distraught about the disappearance of somebody they cared about, of a girl with long silky black hair and crystalline lilac eyes.  
She saw a woman, no more than a girl praying for the reappearance of this mysterious absentee and four young men huddled together to share what little comfort there was.  
She saw all of this like someone who watches a movie, a story that is not yours. Everyone of them felt familiar but she couldn’t say why.  
And then as quickly as they had come, those images vanished, like the morning mist once the sun is fully in the sky, leaving nothing in their wake.

When she finally awoke she remembered nothing from her dreams, nothing from an hypothetical life before the one she was currently chained to.  
She was Ophiucus the Fallen one, the demi-god that had challenged Athena for her rightful place in the universe.  
She was the predestined one, the abused healer whose loyalty had been discussed one to many times to sit still and await judgement like always.  
The Snake Master had reached his limit, and she was the perfect vessel to complete his task!  
“They love you! Don’t do this! Remember! I beg of you, please…remember!”  
An echo, nothing more, readily discarded in the silence of the dark cell. The first assassination attempt had apparently failed, that much she knew, given her current circumstances, but she had no memory of the why. Her master had been patient until that moment but the young girl could feel him, stirring in the back of her mind, ready to deliver punishments worse of those of the Gods if she dared to repeat her failure.  
She knew she had to get out of the cell and then regroup and rethink of another strategy to take down that fluffy goddess of justice.  
“Remember who you are! Remember your name…”  
Again with that voice! And what was this baggianata of her name – again with strange words, when and where did she learn them she couldn’t fathom – she didn’t have a name and she definitely didn’t need one! She was Ophiucus, the Snake Master, and that was it!  
Another jingle alerted her of somebody’s approach. The same steps of earlier, but this time there was another one with them, somebody…heavier.  
Her cell’s door opened, creaking for disuse – how long had she been buried in there? – and brute hands forced her in a standing position, despite the chains painfully biting in her limbs.  
“Sooo, picciridda, I see that prison hasn’t killed you yet! So it’s true what they say, l’erba cattiva non muore mai (A bad penny is always turning up), oh well…if five years in prison haven’t killed you there is always the death sentence that the Pope has managed to make Athena sign, little snake…”  
Cancer no Manigoldo – that was his name if she remembered correctly, after all five years of solitude were a lifetime for someone of barely twenty years – the teacher’s pet, was cheerful when he delivered her the news of her impending doom, but alas, she really couldn’t remember a moment when the bastard hadn’t been cheerful.  
So she was to die. Finally Athena had taken action!  
She quickly refocused on the man in front of her who was telling her, in details, the means of her death.  
“…since Athena didn’t want your blood on any of us and definitely not on Sanctuary, she decreed that you were to be dumped on the most remote island in the Mediterranean, Death Queen Island, and left there to die.”  
Her first instinct was to shout at the injustice of everything, at the indecisiveness of the current reincarnation of Athena, at the insult to her honour that was being left to die on an island.  
She wanted to protest, to insist on a proper, more knightly death.   
But she refrained. At the last moment she had understood that what everyone considered a sure death, could be her only ticket to salvation. She had only to survive the Inferno that was sure to come.  
After his epic declaration of her demise, the Cancer Saint stayed silent, maybe waiting for an answer on her part –what was she supposed to tell him? That they had her permission to dump her in the middle of nowhere? –and when he understood that none was forthcoming he secured her too thin form under his arm and he took off at light speed; destination Death Queen Island.  
Due to his speed the trip there took less than a minute to complete, and in the span of a heartbeat she was, once again, unceremoniously dumped on the hard floor. Only this time she could feel she had sand under her.  
She gingerly tried to stand, just so she knew she could still do it, but when she tried to flex her fingers she found out that they were still in the metal gloves that had been put on her, the night of the failed assassination.  
Sensing his guide was still there she pivoted on herself and held out her hands, in what she hoped was the universal sign of “Free me!”  
She wasn’t sure she could still talk in human language and not just the hissing that characterized the tongue of her beloved snakes.  
She imagined, more than saw, Manigoldo moving his head in the universal symbol of no, and she felt a bit dejected. The gloves complicated her plan of escape.  
“Nor the gloves nor the mask will be taken off, because they were your punishment and that is still going until your death. Plus they seal your Cosmo, so that you cannot escape! I…wish you a swift death Ophiucus the Fallen!”  
And with those parting words the Gold Saint took off again towards Sanctuary, no doubt to inform the Pope, of his successful delivery of another soul to Hades.  
She was so busy trying to find a way to survive with the hands bound and a mask on her face that she never noticed the lingering glance that Manigoldo sent her way before departing. She never saw the naked guilt in his eyes, but even if she had seen it that wouldn’t have changed her mind about her mission against Sanctuary.  
With no backwards glances she left the beach and went to explore the forest in front of her.


	3. Chapter3

“MANIGOLDO!!!”  
The outraged yell resonated in the deep valley of the Sanctuary like it had everyday for the past nine years, with nobody batting an eye to the oddity of the Pope running down the stair, hair and clothes billowing in the wind behind him, yelling for his beloved, yet in that moment particularly hated, student.  
Nobody really knew what the young Cancer Saint had done that time to anger the Pope this much, but whatever that was, they were probably going to see the culprit later on, in the Arena, while being punished for his chronic irreverence.  
Nothing new under the Hellenic sun that day, or so the peasants in Rodorio thought.  
But alas, things weren’t destined to stay still forever.  
“Move your sorry ass out of my face, rincoglionito, before I decide to send you back from the hell you come from!”  
These characteristic – if you knew the man uttering them – words were abruptly followed by a resounding clang and a muted thump signalling the forced dislodging of the offending person from the man in question.  
“There is no need to be that rude Death Mask! It’s not Kanon’s fault if we have arrived here in a tangled mess of limbs! We should be grateful instead that we have reached somewhere! Based on Chronos’ words I thought that oblivion was the only thing awaiting us!”  
The uncharacteristic wise words escaped the perfect rosy lips of a man – or what one could only hope was a man – with long hair of the colour of the sky. Pisces no Aphrodite had always been a vain and shallow person, but dying and coming back to life had inculcated, at least in him, a new maturity that had transformed him – at least partially.  
“Listen, puttanella, I don’t really have the patience to listen to you preaching on the goodness of the world! The quicker we find that idiot the sooner we go home and forget this all thing!”  
Since that phrase had been the closest that the Cancer Saint had gotten to admitting his worries over their missing companion, the other wisely decided to keep their mouths shut and get up to assess the situation.  
“Well, well, well, ma guarda che cosa abbiamo qui! I always told the old man that the dangers hadn’t really disappeared! Oh well, the others don’t need to know and I can have a little bit of fun!”  
And with those words the newcomer started glowing of a spectral blue light that suddenly divided itself into little blue fires, all while, obviously, laughing maniacally.  
“Ma chi cazzo ti credi di essere figghiu di na gran…”  
“That’s enough Death Mask! There is no need to be this vulgar!”  
With those words, alongside a Cosmo of immense and divine proportions, a young woman, managed to stand upright, having been flattened by the immense stature of the Taurus Saint, who was desperately trying to get up from the pavement without hurting anybody else.  
The white xeitonas and the long violet hair flowing in the light breeze were a sight to behold and that, alongside the apparently Italian man he had heard before, managed to freeze Manigoldo on the spot.  
If looks could kill the man that had spoken such vile words would have been six feet under a lot of times judging by the scalding look the young woman was giving him, but the silver hair man wasn’t paying attention to it, like he was perfectly fine with that.  
After a minute in silence, the young woman understood that she was fighting a lost battle, if not even war, and she decided to dedicate her attention to the young fellow that had found them in the woods.  
“You are Cancer no Manigoldo right?”  
That the young woman knew his name didn’t particularly faze the Gold Saint. After all the old man Sage yelled it often enough for anybody to have heard it.  
No, what irked the young man was the weird sensation that had permeated the air and the odd fact that sixteen men and a young woman were sprawled on the forest’s floor like they had been dumped there from a consistent height.  
“Thank everything my soul has bettered itself in the reincarnation cycle! He looks like a dead fish!”  
Wait a second! Reincarnation cycle? What on earth did that foul man mean?  
Now that he looked at all of them he could find some similarities with his fellow Gold Saint, he could even see himself – a dejecting thought indeed – in that idiot with silver hair.  
“Asking you to be less rude is a lost battle right Death Mask?”  
“You know me so well My Lady! I am humbled by the attention you bestow on me!”  
In the thirty seconds of pure silence that had followed that statement, Manigoldo realised that he probably ought to call the Pope, and alert Sanctuary of intruders with possible ill intentions.  
“I’m sorry to have startled you like that but I have a favour to ask of you. Could you please escort us to Lady Athena, Cancer no Manigoldo?”  
Mouth still open – he really started to look like a dead fish, much to his frustration – he could only dumbly nod before walking back to the Twelve House of the Zodiac.  
Which they passed with the littlest trouble anyone had ever managed on the ascension. There were no questions, no permissions to pass through, no denials of said passage, in a nutshell, no Gold Saints presiding the Houses.  
Even without troubles the stairs seemed to take forever, and more than one of those youths privately thought that they needed to convince Athena to change to disposition of the Temples, not imagining that the august goddess was thinking the exact same thing.  
When they finally, and miraculously in some cases, arrived at the Thirteenth House, they finally discovered where all the Gold Saints had been stashed.  
In the Throne’s Room, flanking the Throne, there were the eleven missing Saints, and in the middle, seated on that Throne, was a young girl that looked exactly like the one that had just passed through the doors, and behind her a man with a winged helm covering his face.  
“Welcome, Lady Saori and you my fellow friends, I welcome you to my Sanctuary! I thank you Manigoldo for escorting them here, you can take your place now, so we can begin!”  
Numbly, still thinking it all a dream the Cancer took his position, in between the very young Leo Saint and the very frightening Gemini Saint.  
“I thank you for your warm welcome Lady Sasha! I think we better introduce ourselves before we begin. As you already know I am Athena, but I am from the XX century, a future reincarnation if you want, and these are my Gold Saints: Aries no Mu, Taurus non Aldebaran, Gemini no Kanon, Cancer no Death Mask, Leo no Aiolia, Virgo no Shaka, Libra no Dohko…”  
At that name, another youth, this time in Sasha’s army bristled a bit. Was it possible? Or it was simply a case of two people with the same name? He desperately wanted to check, but a look from Athena held him still.  
“…Scorpio no Milo, Sagittarius no Aiolos, Capricorn no Shura, Aquarius no Camus, Pisces no Aphrodite and finally my Pope, Saga. We have been also accompanied by three trusted allies: Wyvern no Rhadamantys, Griphon no Minos, Garuda no Aiacos, as ambassadors from Lord Hades and eventual reinforcements.”  
At the last three names all Hell – no pun intended – threatened to break loose in the Throne Room, by Athena’s voices brought back order to chaos: “Need I remind you, my Saints, that there is a treaty now between me and Hades? And that the three Infernal Judges are not to be considered enemies?”  
Silence descended once again in the room and that era’s Athena was finally free to continue their conversation.  
“You are welcome here my friends, but if I may ask, what is it that brings you here? To this place and time?”  
“We are here to rescue a precious person, a loved sibling, a trusted friend, a rare warrior of the body and of the spirit! She was taken from us forcibly and we know nothing of her whereabouts and conditions. We only know that she had been brought here, but why we don’t know. We aren’t here to change the future, we simply want her back!”  
A soul forcibly dragged through time wasn’t a laughing matter. There was a very high risk of interference and even of destruction of a particular future if one wasn’t very careful.  
But to be careful you needed to be aware of the fact you were time travelling and it looked like in this case the pour young woman had been kidnapped and sent here as a punishment.  
“If we can be, in any case, of help, just say so! We are at your service! Just out of curiosity, what was the girl’s name?”  
In the split second before young Saori told them the name, Sasha felt a sensation of dread pooling in her stomach. Somehow she knew she wasn’t going to like what was about to get out of her reincarnation’s mouth.  
“Her name is…Ophiucus no Heleiana!”  
Before Sasha had any opportunity of stopping any unthought-of comment from her Saints, Manigoldo’s voice resonated loudly in the silent candid room.  
“You are here for the traitor???”  
He should have observed better the newcomers’ reactions. If he had he probably would have formulated differently his last comment…  
“You are late to the party, I dumped her to her doom a week ago. By now Ophiucus the Fallen is dead!”


	4. Chapter 4

Ophiucus the Fallen wasn’t dead…yet, but judging by her thirst, the distinct lack of feeling in her arms and the double vision she kept experiencing, she wasn’t that far off from the Underworld.  
She had always known that in order to escape she needed to pass through Hell but even in her darkest dreams the torture she was enduring was almost too much to bear.  
A week. A measly seven days, that in any other case would have flown by, had stretched like seven centuries in that inhospitable desert of an island.  
But the worst part wasn’t the burning thirst or the continuous rumble of her stomach, a rumble she couldn’t stop because how in the name of everything do you hunt, skin or dig with metal mittens???  
No the worst part was the voice in her head. The terrifying goody-to-shoes – she might her referred to her as perfettina – whose voice had tormented her incessantly since her escape from prison, begging her either to reconsider murdering Athena or to remember her name, usually both in the same sentence, over and over again.  
She was always droning on companions, friends, family even; people that were supposed to love her – like that ever happened outside stories – that had given her a second chance, the family and the affection she had never had.  
Always depicting a world too good to be seriously true.  
But how do you get rid of a voice in your head? The already more-dead-than-alive girl didn’t know, but what she was sure of was that if that voice didn’t stop she was going to die, victim of a mad impulse of suicide, just to shut the voice up!  
“Look what we got here…no doubt another nice young victim of Athena’s justice ne? Shall we take her with us or do we have mercy on her soul right here right now?”  
Even if she couldn’t really see them – the mask had a sort of filter over her eyes that really complicated things – she knew they were three men and of the worst species. Brutes, thieves, murderers, even rapists probably. Perfect! Exactly what she needed to get out of that Gods’ forsaken island!  
Perfectly aware of the fact that she couldn’t talk anymore like a normal human being the girl knew she had to resort to more basic and universal means of communication.  
With a mask on and gloved hands there wasn’t much she could do in the seducing department, but the men in front of here weren’t that picky, she realized when she saw the hungry looks her battered body had garnered.  
Moving her arm in a very bad imitation of the universal “come hither” sign she beckoned them close, counting the different steps and trying to judge their build and brute force.  
The three men slowly advanced, predatory grins on their faces that she was sure were going to send her other personality into a fit – maybe if she was lucky she was going to get rid of her as well – circling her like predators with their prey.  
When one of them tried the direct approach she quickly caught his hand mid-air, brought him forth towards her and impaled him with his very same knife that she had taken from his belt.  
“Please stop it! In the name of justice don’t kill them! Don’t become a murderer please…”  
Again with that voice! Damn it! If that shit continued she was going to loose her mind sooner or later!  
“Well, well! I see that you aren’t like the others…when they get dumped here their fighting spirit has already been broken…they only await the time when merciful death will come to take them…but not you…you are different! There is still fire in your soul, a strong desire to live and not die here. A purpose if you will…but alas, you have killed my mate and for that you must be punished! Josè, kill her!”  
When she saw Josè she knew that her chances to escape alive from that Island had plummeted dramatically, but she still couldn’t give up! Her master had assigned her a mission and she wasn’t going to disappoint him by dying before accomplishing her goal.  
So she closed her eyes, ignored the persistently annoying voice in her head, and tried to bring up the memories of a time far away, when she had been a student, an apprentice, trying to win a cloth like many other orphaned children.  
The massacres that passed for training that had killed more than half of the competition were sure to come in handy now, she thought, when faced with an adversary that was at least double her size, and while she was at a distinct disadvantage.  
Moving rapidly to her left she then pivoted on her right foot to kick his opponent in the face, without much success but at least the sand she had inadvertently brought up managed to blind him for a couple of precious seconds which she used to escape his clutches.  
From then on she felt him, more than saw him charging towards her like a bull.  
The image of a golden bull, one with an open and kind face, superimposed themselves to the harsh reality for a moment, blinding her to the attack coming her way.  
“Damn it! I if don’t stop these illusions they are going to kill me!”  
The impact was devastating, but somehow she managed not to loose consciousness, knowing fully well that if she did that she was signing her death certificate.  
When her enemy charged again, no strange images were forthcoming so she could see the attack and easily avoid it, all the while implementing a strategy for her victory.  
When the enraged bull attacked her for a third time, she knew she had won. At his approach she jumped higher than him managing, if just barely, to land behind his body and then she turned around and punch his off-balance form with all her might.  
For once luck was on her side and the last she saw of her enemy was his body mid-air, arms flailing around in a pathetic hope of stalling the inevitable fall.  
She didn’t have time to congratulate herself on her victory that a traitorous cold iron impaled her from behind.  
When the dagger shot out of her body, in preparation of a second, fatal, strike, two very different things happened, almost simultaneously: a blinding white light enveloped her body before shooting out towards the equatorial skies and finally – finally – a blissful silence descended in her head once more, and simultaneously a new deep voice stopped the dagger from completing its merciful mission.  
“Don’t kill her Alejandro!”  
The man called Alejandro, pivoted on his heels dragging her unresponsive body with him.  
“But Boss, you have seen her! She has killed two of my best men practically without breaking a sweat! I have to avenge them!”  
“You will do no such thing! If they managed to get killed by a young girl who looks more dead than alive than they aren’t worth of your revenge! If nothing she has done me a favour! But that’s exactly why I want her alive! She’ll come with us and her presence will more than compensate me for my losses!”  
“But…”  
“No buts Alejandro! Take her with us!”  
Not one to capitulate so quickly, even in front of his boss, the thug punched her so hard that finally unconsciousness claimed her.


	5. Chapter 5

“HI!”  
“Porcaccia di quella miseria! Da dove ca**o sbuchi ragazzina?! You’re lucky I’m in a good mood or else you would be wandering the dark planes of the Underworld by now!”  
“You talk funny! I like you!”  
Death Mask of Cancer was not an easily surprised man. He had a reputation for being thought both in the body and in the spirit – after all you cannot be a sissy while dealing with dead souls on a daily basis right? – and the times he had been rendered speechless could have been counted on the fingers of one hand and in every one of these occasions the culprit was always the same: the missing Saint of Ophiucus.  
He still refused to think about her as dead, and he had told as much to any of his fellow Saints. He hadn’t seen her soul at the gates of the Underworld yet, and until he did he would not believe her demise for one single instant. The others had taken comfort in the news, but the fact that the young girl hadn’t called out for their help had put a sliver of doubt in their hearts, a doubt that no one wanted to share with the Cancer Saint who, they knew, loved the Helena deeply, despite his constant grumbling about her.  
“Are you alright? You seem sad…”  
Brusquely jolted out of his reverie the Saint of Cancer reacted in the only way he was comfortable with…he lashed out, destroying into nothingness the column next to the one the obnoxious little girl was seated.  
Little girl who, to her credit, didn’t as much as flinch while everything around her turned to dust.  
“You shouldn’t do that! It is not nice to destroy thing, especially since they aren’t yours…that’s what my dad used to say…”  
“Listen picciridda, don’t you have anywhere else to be? I don’t want company, especially not little girls’ company! Get lost now and nothing will happen to you!”  
With that, he swirled his cloak rather dramatically behind him and started walking away from the most damaged area of the Sanctuary, where he had taken refuge against the expression of utter devastation that his boyfriend seemed to have permanently etched on his face, since that idiotic Manigoldo had told them he had killed Helena.  
Or at least he tried to get away until a sniff reached his ears.  
“Oh no you don’t! Don’t you dare start crying little girl! If you are trying to move me, let me tell you that you have the wrong person! I have killed people younger than you for less!”  
He hoped he had scared her enough to leave him alone. He wouldn’t have killed her, he didn’t do that anymore, not since Athena had revived him after Hades, and even before that he had always had a soft spot for little girls, as was confirmed by the fact that, despite being an obnoxious brat, Helena had reached maturity, even living with him.  
“Then kill me! You would only do me a favour…”  
It was the last part, spoken in undertones, that chilled the Sicilian to the bone. He had never met anybody that young that already wanted to die. No…that wasn’t true…a memory that he thought long forgotten surfaced again.

“Stop crying you brat! The Pope entrusted you to me so I could make a Saint out of you, but if you keep crying like a little girl than I’ll be forced to kill you!”  
“Then why don’t you kill me? Why are you stalling your hand Cancer? Won’t my pretty little face be a nice addition to your collection Death Mask? You keep saying you’ve killed for much less…so I am asking you: why don’t you kill me!? You would only do me a favour…”  
“A favour kid? Why would I only do you a favour? Why do you want so badly to die?”

He remembered he had been desperate to know at that time. He had people begging for their life constantly, but never anybody had begged him to die, not someone that young!  
He also remembered that when the young Helena – she wasn’t even seven years old – had given him her answer he had desperately wished he hadn’t asked.

“Why do I so desperately want to die you ask? Because I have nothing left here for me to live…my family was killed by the Yakuza right under, my twin brother disappeared soon after that… bad luck followed me everywhere I went… people started shunning me, believing me some kind of witch because I can understand and talk to snakes, and when finally someone came to take me away, to a new life as a Saint of Athena, I discovered that I am destined to the blackest of the cloths, the traitor of the Zodiac…did you know, Cancer, that I am destined to the cloth of Ophiucus the Fallen? So you better kill me now, there is nothing good that will wait for me down this road…”

Ophiucus the Fallen, the traitor, the cursed Cloth. He had heard of it, of course, all of them had. It was the horror story, the moral story that mentors told them as the perfect example of what they weren’t supposed to become. And even he had been suitably scared by that story. The legends that circulated around that cloth were worse than any horror he had managed to conjure over the years. To say that it was cursed was an understatement. Whoever had worn the cloth had lost his mind to its evil powers, becoming a ruthless, mindless killer.  
He had known in advance what were the Pope’s plans for the girl: to make her a fine assassin, someone to infiltrate into the Kido foundation, where she was to befriend the young heiress and than terminate her. He had thought that the Pope would have given her one of the Silver Cloths, something that didn’t look threatening but contained a ruthless power inside, like the Crane Cloth.  
But in hearing the name of the Forgotten One, knowing exactly what cloth and what path had been laid in front of that girl, what cruel destiny had been forced on those fragile shoulders, something he had thought long dead, had reawakened to life.  
He had nullified his Cosmo and relaxed his fighting stance and he had slowly advanced to her sobbing form, curled on his floor.

“I will not kill you girl…you’re face isn’t really suited to my walls, but I’ll make a deal with you: if you survive the training with all twelve Gold Saints I will help you find your brother. We can start from the Underworld and then if he is not there we’ll move onto the world of the living. It’ll be our secret girl so don’t go telling everyone about this or your face will end up in my wall! Are we clear?”

He had never heard her laugh before that moment and when he had heard that sound he had known that he was doomed. She reminded him too much of his own little sister, the only human being he had ever loved with all his heart, the only one he hadn’t been able to save.  
In her memory he vowed to protect the girl he now had in front of him from the horrible destiny that had been bestowed on her.  
And that was how their unlikely partnership had started. Through the years it had naturally progressed to a state where she freely called him “big-brother” and he secretly thought the same thing.  
She had saved herself from her destiny as a mindless killer, but he hadn’t been able to celebrate it with her. While she freed herself of Death’s binding he had met the Black Lady for the final time when he paid the ultimate price for a life of foolishness in the name of a justice that wasn’t just.  
Supreme irony had wanted that she had found her long lost brother, Pegasus no Seiya, in the events that had heralded his own death. There hadn’t been much time to mourn the dead that they had come back to life, seemingly as traitors and his little sister had been forced to send him back to the hell he had come out of, tears on her face and broken heart in her chest.  
But Athena had been merciful and had granted them another chance and finally they had been able to talk and mend their broken relationship.  
And now this…but he wasn’t going to give up hope, not yet.  
The desperate sobbing brought him back to reality where the girl was still sitting on the same semi-column.  
“I will not kill you girl, so you can stop crying! Do you have a family to go back to?”  
As he had guessed she signalled no with her head, liquid blue eyes desperately trying to hold back the tears, like he had asked.  
“Then if you have nowhere to go you can come with me, I’ll introduce you to some…friends. But if you go and tell them I think of them as such I’ll do you the favour you seemed to desperately want right?”  
Without waiting for an answer he started talking back to Sanctuary thinking that, maybe that obnoxious brat could make Aphrodite smile again, after all he wasn’t the only one with a soft spot for little girls!  
“Come on brat let’s go!”  
“Hey you! My name is not “brat”, it’s Nathair!”

“Smettila di chiamarmi “ragazzina” Mask! Io mi chiamo Heleiana!”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all! Sorry for the delay...I am behind schedule with my job and everything else has paid the price...  
> Thanks to all who have started to read the story!  
> If you have comments I would love to hear them!  
> Enjoy the chapter!  
> Obviously, every character from Saint Seiya belongs to its owner! I own just a few characters and my ideas!

“Nicoletta! Muovi quel bel fondoschiena che ti ritrovi e vieni a darmi una mano!Non ti pago per non fare nulla!”  
“Arrivo subito, signora Agnese!”  
With a barely conceited sneer, the young girl who answered to the name Nicoletta, folded the last of the sheets she had just taken down from the line and headed back into the inn to see what Mrs Agnese, the innkeeper wanted from her.  
This had, unfortunately, been her routine from the moment she had woken up from the impromptu nap courtesy of Alejandro and found herself onto a ship navigating from Death Queen Island to a city in the north of Italy.  
While the circumstances of her capture hadn’t been the best ones when she had woken up things had definitely improved. For once the obnoxious voice in her head had finally stopped her hammering, seemingly disappearing into the void never to return, and for that she couldn’t have been happier.  
Second, the men who had taken her prisoner had managed, with a bit of a side effect, to remove the iron gloves and the mask she was wearing. Unfortunately nor her hands nor her face were going to be the same again, but her freedom was well worth a couple of long jarring scars. After all, for a girl with no family and no love to speak of, what was a ruined face going to matter? It was not like she had had a lot of suitors to begin with…  
After her awakening she had been introduced to the leader of their small venture: Leandro. He had been an interesting surprise in that company. She had thought him cunning, yes, but physically weak, but his lean and small body had been deceitfully strong when he had face her in an hand-to-hand combat.  
Slowly the two had started to talk, to bond over past offences and grievances at the hands of Athena and her Sanctuary and the more they talked the more they connected so nobody had been surprised when she had exited his room one morning in nothing but one of his shirts. But while she could say that it was only sex something inside of her, something so reminiscent of that too-good-a-voice had settled inside her gut and squeezed unpleasantly every time she met with her lover.  
Lover who had dumped her in Murano and had disappeared without a by-your-leave after having told her that in that microscopic dump of village, he had felt a very strong Cosmo, probably one of those idiotic Saints that followed Miss Fluffiness around like small ducklings.  
His plan had been for her to infiltrate the village, befriend the owner of that Cosmo and than accompany him to Sanctuary where, with an ally inside, she could finish her mission once and for all.  
At first she had been hesitant in telling him her mission, after all it was very well known that to trust someone meant to give that someone the chance to stab you from behind, but she had needed an ally, or at least a mean to get back to Sanctuary so she had little choice but to trust Leandro. Who had, surprisingly, nodded and incorporated her into his master plan that had apparently the ultimate goal of killing the Goddess of Justice but was, coincidentally, missing the main role in that: the assassin.  
She should have been more careful, more alert, less prone to believe him and his friends –after all not everybody could sense Cosmos - but the offer had been so good, so right what she needed that she had dismissed her instincts and went along with the plan.  
And that was why she was stuck as a bar wench in what had possibly been the dirtiest, poorest and shaggiest inn in all of Murano.  
At first she hadn’t understood why she had been dumped there, but when she had collided with another girl at the service of Mrs. Agnese, the innkeeper, she had understood.  
They had been wrong, very very wrong.  
The being emanating the strong Cosmo that Leandro had felt wasn’t a man, a powerful, big, sturdy, blood-seeking man; no, that strong Cosmo was coming from a woman. A young girl, fourteen years old at best and with the smallest and softest body to match her carefree, naïve and all in all innocent personality.  
No, this was not the accomplice they needed – for Athena’s sake, the girl couldn’t face a tiny spider without yelling let alone kill it! – but for all her knowledge that she was wasting time Ophiucus couldn’t leave her.  
Somehow Sara, the girl’s name, had managed to carve out a niche in her black heart. She reminded her of someone else, of another girl with too big eyes and a look of utter innocence about her, but the mysterious girl’s face was always bathed in a thick fog and no answer from her past was forthcoming.  
“Ahia! Ouch! Che male!! What are you trying to accomplish Nicoletta? Are you trying to kill me?”  
The girl’s pained yell and subsequent question had jolted the Snake Fighter out of her reverie and with crescent dread she found herself poised to strike, her best and deadliest hit ready at her fingertips.  
Startled and fearful – when had she started to feel such naked fear for the girl in front of her? – she immediately dropped her fighting stance and relaxed her Cosmo in order to, at least, appear non-threatening to young Sara.  
“Stop being an idiot! Because even if I don’t want to kill you that doesn’t mean that somebody else won’t! You need to be on your guard always! So stop being a baby and try to focus on the lesson here!”  
Judging by her charge’s startled face she might have been a little too harsh in her reprimand but nobody could see how she had gotten attached to the midget in front of her, she had a reputation to uphold! Again those words sparkled something inside her soul, a long forgotten memory of a man with silver hair and bloody eyes, of a relationship beyond the one between a master and his charge, but the Fallen One ruthlessly squashed that feeling.  
“C’mon! Let’s try again! Uh –uh! No complaining! In less than two days we are going to Greece so you can begin proper training in order to get the Cloth you deserve and I won’t have you dea… failing just because you weren’t strong enough to withstand the training!”  
The look in her student’s eyes, rich dark brown with just a hint of gold in the right light, was the one that spoke of a renewed determination and an unstoppable trust in her master and the Fallen felt bad at the deceiving act she was putting up.  
She couldn’t follow the plan! She knew she had to kill Athena but she couldn’t, wouldn’t, put Sara’s life in danger! But she also knew that she couldn’t get attached to the young girl in front of her, she couldn’t let her see the depth of that affection. She had already come too close to blurting out her secret not a minute ago and she knew that every interaction she had with the girl needed to cease, immediately.  
She was going to take Sara to Greece like she had promised her, because the girl had a potential that was being squandered in her life as a kitchen maid in the forgotten Murano. Even if she despised Athena and her Saints she had promised the girl to take her to Athens and to Athens she was going to take her! And if she completed her mission favourably, maybe then she could resume her lessons with the girl…if Sara didn’t hate her for what she had done.  
Hate…an emotion she was very familiar with since her birth. She had hated her family, her life, her destiny and she had been hated in return by almost everybody she had come across.  
But the young maiden in front of her didn’t hate her, hadn’t hated her even in the first days, when she had been beyond rude and demeaning, when the Devil Child had fought tooth and nail in order to prevent the formation of the her affection for the kitchen girl. A girl who was more stubborn than life itself and had wedged her place into her heart and she had camped there, with no intention of ever moving again.  
And now, a little more than a month later, the girl by the name of Nicoletta – the Snake Mistress, the Devil Spawn – didn’t want her to move. She could not bear the thought of her young charge hating her, trust destroyed, affection cast aside and happy memories forgotten.  
She knew she had become greedy, she knew that those feelings were going to bring her to her death but she also knew she didn’t want it to change.  
She was aware that her affiliation to Sara was going to bring the younger girl to her death and she couldn’t bear it. She shouldn’t have felt so attached but she wasn’t about to deny the pull of her soul.  
She didn’t want to see those brown eyes lifeless – she was young, too young for her life to be cut short – and so it was for this reason that, two weeks later, when Sara stood in front of the Pope accused – framed more accurately – of plotting Athena’s death, she didn’t hide in the shadows like she had been ordered to, waiting for the right moment to strike, but she surged forward towards the Pope and his golden jury and blurted out their plan and her role as an assassin in it.  
The last thing she saw before being hit by the poisonous needle of the Scorpion were those golden-brown eyes full of an emotion she knew only too well: betrayal.  
But at least they weren’t lifeless and for that Ophiucus the Fallen thanked every deity she could think of before succumbing into darkness.


	7. Chapter 7

Something big was about to happen. Of that Death Mask of Cancer was sure. The dead were restless and that always meant that something terrible was about to explode.  
Truth to be told he had been restless for the past two weeks since the new arrivals had come to Sanctuary.  
There was something stirring in the air, a presence familiar but at the same time unknown, something that had the Cancer Saint on his guard almost constantly.  
He had tried to share his uneasy feelings with his fellow Saints but they were so enamoured with little Nathair that they hadn’t felt a single thing. And Death Mask could not really yell at them for their lack of awareness. The little girl was adorable, that was sure, and the others weren’t attuned to the subtle shifts in the air like he was: he liked to think that it was his natural ability as Guardian of the Hades Mouth but he knew that he owed it more to Heleiana’s presence over the years than to anything else.  
He was surprised that the three Infernal Judges hadn’t felt anything but he supposed that it took a long practice to be able to recognize the tell-tale shift in the air that signalled the arrival of a known soul.  
Known soul…oh sweet Athena! A known soul! Of course!  
How could have missed it? How did he not recognize the feeling of a soul that was so dear to him?  
Because, that feeling wasn’t exactly like Helena’s soul, it was different, missing a piece, an important piece at that, something defining…but he wasn’t going to waste more time on that, not now, not when he was so close to finding her again! Everything else could come later, they could overcome anything together!   
He was so focused on his mad dash toward Sanctuary – relieved beyond words that nobody he knew was paying him any attention – that he didn’t see the young girl in the middle of the street until he had bowled her over.  
“Ehi stupida! Guarda dove vai!”  
“Stupida a chi, brutto cafone! E poi guarda tu dove vai visto che sei tu quello che mi è venuto addosso!”  
For a hopeful second the sound of having somebody respond in his native language had him hope that he had finally found his missing sister, but all of his hopes were promptly shattered when he locked eyes with a young girl of no more than fifteen with fiery brown eyes, a little clouded by something akin to a loss.  
Having insulted him the girl pivoted on herself and started going back to where she came when he felt something resonate with his Cosmo.  
“Wait! Don’t go! What is your name?”  
He was being uncharacteristically gentle and polite and for the second time that day he thanked the stars that nobody he knew was there to see this embarrassing show, but he couldn’t scare her, not without finding out why she had been marked by the Ophiucus.  
“Sara…my name is Sara, yours?”  
He debated for a second whether or not give her his true name, but nobody apart from Helena and Aphrodite knew it and if his chosen name sent her running…well it wasn’t as though he couldn’t find her again.  
“I am called Death Mask…”  
He saw her pale and mentally prepared for yet another fainting spell that seemed so frequent around young girls when he was in her company, but after a second or two she righted herself again and spoke, so softly that for a moment he thought he had imagined it.  
“So you are her friend…”  
Her? Who was she? Dared he hope?  
“Who is she? Young? Long, flowing, jet black hair? Crystal lilac eyes? Golden armour? Tell me!”  
She hadn’t looked like she was going to give him an answer but the rising panic in his voice and the naked affection for this girl that she could see on his face had her speaking before she could really decide to.  
“She is young yes, long flowing hair, but white not black and blood red eyes, more or less like yours…no golden armour that I could see, no particular use of Cosmo that I can recall. She was a trusted friend, a sister almost until she betrayed me when she used me as bait in her plan to assassinate the Goddess Athena! I still cannot believe she did that! She seemed a nice person enough, caring if a bit gruff, like she didn’t want to know she cared. She had this huge sweet tooth for apple pie and cassata and she always had a beautiful rose in her hair, I have never seen her without, she said that the rose reminded her of someone, long forgotten that she was trying to remember again…”  
By the end of her speech the girl had broken down in the middle of the road and started crying her heart out for what she had deemed a betrayal, but the Cancer Saint couldn’t focus on that, he couldn’t offer any form of consolation, not when his world had been rocked out of axis and finally, finally, put back together.  
The girl’s description didn’t match Helena physically, but her preference for apple pie and cassata, possibly in the same spoonful and the fact that this mysterious girl couldn’t leave the rose because of a long forgotten someone made him instinctively think of her, and he knew he was right.  
But the pieces of the puzzle didn’t add up, Helena couldn’t really be thinking to kill Athena, that wasn’t right at all! She protected their Goddess, like the others, him included, but she did a better job at it because she also protected the friend, Saori.  
Something foul was happening and Death Mask was damned if he didn’t find out what that was.  
“You said that she betrayed you, that she used you in her ploy to get to Athena, but when you told me I was one of her friends you didn’t use a past tense so she isn’t dead…where is she?”  
“She sacrificed herself for me…I was framed for a murder I never wanted to commit and at the last possible minute she jumped out and accused herself; she revealed her plan and my framing, she said she was Ophiucus the Fallen and that she was taking full responsibility for everything and that I was not to blame! The last I have seen of her she was being dragged out the court room by a man looking like you but with blue hair instead of silver. I followed them and I saw she was being brought to some kind of dungeon, but I haven’t seen her since…”  
Manigoldo then…he had played a part in Helena’s assassination attempt the first time and imprisonment the second time and then he hadn’t told them anything even though they had specifically asked this time’s Athena to know immediately if their friend, sister, popped up. There was a specific corner in Hell that Death Mask had reserved for him, pre-incarnation be damned.  
“You don’t hate her…”  
The words had escaped him before he could anything to stop them, but that didn’t make them any less true…  
“What? Of course I hate her! She betrayed me…”  
“And yet you followed them to see where she was taken and you plan to spring her from her prison, otherwise this collection of items are completely useless to a girl like you…so tell me which is it? Love or hate?”  
“I…I…think…oh hell! I know I love her! She is the sister I never had! And something deep inside me tells me she didn’t want to betray me or even kill the goddess; something or someone made her do it!”  
“You have guts little girl! That and a very strong intuition that matches your heart!”  
At that the girl went red and started stammering.  
“That’s what she said to me…exactly the same words…”  
And at that it was the Cancer’s turn to redden and stammer his way through a sentence, because that was exactly what he had told Helena, the first time she had been able to summon the souls of the dead.  
Coughing he somehow tried to cover up his embarrassment and reverting back to his usually gruff and ill-mannered personality he barked: “What are we waiting then ragazzina?” and with that he stalked towards what he hoped was the direction of the prison in which his little sister was kept.  
With an easy laugh and a fond shake of her head Sara followed his lead, a new hope shining in her eyes rekindling the fire of affection that hadn’t really been dead.

Hang on sister of my heart, I’m coming to save you!


	8. Chapter 8

Damn, this was going to be harder that he had thought. The prison in which they had taken Helena was none other than the Fourth House, a place that the XX century Cancer Saint dreaded more than everywhere else.  
“This is going to be very difficult…”  
“Why? It’s just a fancy house! There are non bars at the windows and no big guarded door at the front so it should be very easy, un gioco da ragazzi!”  
Oh how I wish that to be true!  
“No, girl…it’s not going to be a child’s play even without barred windows and doors. This House doesn’t need them to be the best prison there is…the house itself is impenetrable and there is nothing that anybody can do against that!”  
“So we are doomed then…we are never going to be able to find her at all! This venture has all been for not wasn’t it? I cannot believe that house is impenetrable! I just think you are too coward to go in and that you really don’t want to save Nico…Helena at all! I had thought you a more honourable…AAAH!”  
A rough and calloused hand shot out and grabbed by the neck; blood red eyes fixed on her, alight with some kind of deep emotion and fury, a lot of fury towards her; silver hair gleaming in the moonlight, moved by the insistent breeze coming from his Cosmo; all in all, under the pale light of the moon Death Mask, in all of his fury and agony, was a sight to behold.  
Too bad that she was going numb from the lack of air into her windpipe.  
After ten agonizing seconds in which she thought she was really going to die and he really contemplated the possibility of killing her, the chokehold he had around her neck vanished as quickly as it had manifested.  
“I will not kill you because I promised her that I would not kill another soul who didn’t deserve to die, but if you only repeat what you just said nothing, and I mean nothing, will save you from a very long a painful death, do you understand?”  
Too shocked to really process what had just happened the young girl merely nodded her understanding, suddenly aware of just how dangerous the man in front of her really was.  
“Never for an instant believe that I would let her rot in a prison without doing everything in my power to free her! I had a sister once, a sweet little thing five years my junior. She followed me everywhere like a duckling and I would have done just about anything for her. She died the day of her fifth birthday during a regolamento dei conti between rival mafia clans. She died alongside my mother and father because her only fault had been wanting an ice cream as her birthday cake. I hadn’t wanted the ice cream so I had opted to stay at the park and play some more, waiting for them. I saw them fall while the machine guns pulverized the ice cream stand. I saw them, her, fall and there was nothing I could have done to save them. That day I closed my heart to everything and anything. That day I swore to avenge them and to sic revenge and destruction on those who had killed them. That day was the day in which I became Death Mask. And I had thought myself happy with the life of bloodshed I had chosen. I had managed to become the Cancer Gold Saint and I was free to unleash every kind of horror on unsuspecting people, all in the name of what, I know now, was a twisted sense of justice. But one day she came into my life. Dumped there by our Pope who sought to leash me and punish us both. She came in seeking death and I almost gave it to her. But at the last possible second I saw something in her eyes, something that stalled my hand. She had the same defiant look my sister had when asking something she knew very well she couldn’t have. And in that exact moment the barrier around my heart broke down and I found myself hoping to change her mind, to have her live, wanting, against all odds, another chance at that brotherly bond that had been ripped too soon. To this day I still don’t know what I have done in this or in any past lives to deserve her continued presence in my life but I took a vow back then, to never let any harm befall on her, to protect her like I couldn’t protect my sister, and I have no intention of breaking that vow, not today not ever! So don’t go and judge matters you know nothing about little girl!”  
Like many others before her she had judged him on his looks – a bit satanic – on his personality- to say it was rude and crass was being polite – and on the things that came out of is mouth – more often than not they were curses, swear words and not so complimentary epithets – but in that moment she finally saw his soul. And while everything else might have been cheap and not very pretty, the fire blazing in his soul was a thing of beauty. Because Death Mask of Cancer was quick to judge and even quicker to hate, but those few he loved, he loved them with a passion and a loyalty worthy of the utmost praise.  
“I am sorry! I spoke out of turn…but if what you say it’s true – and I’m not saying I don’t trust you – but if the house is really impenetrable as you told me, how are we going to save her? We are only two…”  
“Sometimes a small number is the only thing needed girl…and the house might be nigh impenetrable but…there is one that can penetrate its walls…”  
“There is?? Why didn’t you tell me sooner? Who is it?”  
“I am…”  
The silence that followed the admission had him look at her and, seeing her look of disbelief, hurry into his explanation.  
“I am the Cancer Saint, guardian of the Fourth House of the Zodiac and that, even though it’s a different time, is the Fourth House. So it is the Cancer House, my house.”  
“O-o-o-k…still don’t see how we are going to get inside and spring Helena though…”  
“There is no we… I am going inside and free Helena and you are going to stay here, where you are safe, and wait for our return!”  
“Manco morta! Maybe we haven’t understood each other you overgrown crab! I. Am. Not. Staying. Here! I am not some damsel in distress that needs protecting! I am trained to fight!”  
“No! You aren’t trained to fight, you are just being trained! And there’s a huge difference in that! I am not risking your life in this! Helena will have my head if something were to happen to you while you were rescuing her, so you are going to stay here and that’s final!”  
“Fine, I’ll stay here! And see if I care that you cannot pass the guards outside the house! When you’ll be dead I’ll sneak in myself and free Helena…”  
Damn the girl had a point. From their position in the shadows in the secret passage near the Fourth House Death Mask could see no less than three guards stationed outside and possibly two more inside. He could, of course, send them all to Hell with the Sekishiki, but his powers had the tendency to manifest themselves with an irritating blue light that, while suitably ghostly normally, in this case it would give away their position almost immediately. He could not save his sister alone but he was loath to ask the young girl’s help.  
“I can help you…I’ll make some noise and draw them out and you can sneak in and free her…I’ll stick to the shadows, nobody will see me and your head will be safe!”  
He knew he should say no, that he should insist and send her away, maybe even to his comrades, his…friends – and isn’t that an admission when it comes to the other Gold Saints – who still don’t know what is happening and are probably worried about his prolonged disappearance; but they were so close to Helena that he knew he was going to be selfish. Hoping against all odds that he was not going to regret his decision he nodded his consent.  
“If something happens to you and, Athena forbid it, you are killed, know that I control one of the entrances of the Underworld and I will find you and make you regret your decision, understood?”  
“Yes sir!”  
And with that she was gone.  
Less than thirty seconds later a rusting sound, followed by a scream brought all of the guards away from their positions and he was free to enter the house.  
Like a well-worn jumper the house seemed to shift to accommodate its owner who wasn’t its owner and, thankfully, he didn’t trigger any alarm.  
He had always known he had cells in his house, for what purpose he didn’t know, but apparently this Cancer Saint used them fairly regularly if the cleanliness of that particular corridor was any indication.  
The silence was suffocating and what was worse was that he couldn’t feel Helena’s Cosmo. It wasn’t blocked, it simply wasn’t there.  
Fortunately the torches told him the way even though he couldn’t feel the prisoner and soon enough he found himself in front of a wooden door.  
Knowing he had no time to loose the kicked the door open and in the dim light of the torches his heart stopped.  
Chained to the wall, high enough that she was half standing in what was definitely a very uncomfortable position, was the girl who had occupied his thoughts for the past month and a half. Her hair was white, just like Sara had said, but she was unmistakably his little sister.  
He forced his feet to move towards her, afraid that she was gravely injured since she hadn’t really responded to his entrance, when finally she looked at him.  
And the sight was almost enough to kill him, there and then, because her beautiful face was scarred beyond any recognition and her bloody red eyes were alight with emotions that usually didn’t cross his Helena’s face.  
“Helena?”  
Fearful, that was how his voice sounded and he hated himself and those responsible for this even more.  
“Who is Helena? And who are you?”  
And with those words his world came shattering down.


	9. Chapter 9

“Traitors in the house! Traitors in the house!”  
The yell had pierced the still air like a whip and jolted the silver hair man out of his reverie and into action.  
Knowing he didn’t have a lot of time to free Helena and get the hell out of that creepy place – and wasn’t that an uncomfortable thought to have for his own house – he dashed to her side, pointedly ignoring both her marred looks and her questions.  
“Shut up now girl! I am trying to help you escape!”  
She went mercifully silent after that even though a part of him chocked on the naked fear that had gripped his heart at the swiftness of her surrender. His Helena never surrendered, at least not this easily.  
But in that moment he had more pressing concerns that the apparent change of personality, like the sturdiness of the bonds keeping the girl firmly chained to the wall of her cell.  
“Damn! I am never going to be able to free you from these…”  
He knew they were doomed, his skills at lock picking, if they ever existed had never really comprised the knowledge needed to break these locks, and for all of his power he really was the most pathetic of the Gold Saints, with no practical skills or destructive powers.  
But of one thing he was certain: he wasn’t going to abandon her here to her destiny. If they were to die in that dingy cell they were going to do it together, him in front of her, in a last desperate attempt at protection.  
Lost in these thoughts he took a moment to notice that the air in the dungeon had chilled somewhat and that a faint sheen of ice had started to cover everything.  
“Ma che diavolo…”  
“Not now Death Mask! We’ll talk later of the fact that you decided to come here alone without telling any of us about the fact you had found Helena! For now stand back and let me break the locks. Once we are safe we’ll talk!”  
“Camus?!? What are you doing here? How did you even know I was here?”  
“I followed you, idiotic crab. We were all worried about you! So when you didn’t come back last night, and Dite had the mother of all fits, I knew that something had happened, something big, because you are many things Mask, but you are not an oath-breaker and you had promised both Aphrodite and Nathair to come back…Shura and even Saga are out here with me…”  
Saga and Shura? What? Had the world started spinning out of control? How was it possible that the coldest, the grumpiest and the craziest Saints of all Sanctuary where outside the Fourth House, having followed him around because they had been worried about him?  
Apparently he had voiced that particular thought out loud because with a smirk Camus answered him.  
“Dying together for a common cause, thrice I may add, adds a certain perspective to your life and to how you look at you companions. I, we, have seen you at your worst – and believe me those heads on your walls were the most disgusting thing I have ever seen – but we have also seen you pass through fire, and us with you, to redeem yourself, to finally do the right thing, the honourable thing. And that Death Mask, that sentiment creates bonds, strong ones. We may not be blood related, but I consider you one of my shield-brothers. Our bond is not forged in affection and peace but in blood and sacrifice and for that it’s even more precious. And I think, no I know, that the others feel the same way. You are our brother and Helena is our little sister, our to protect, our to love, our to save. Please, please, Death Mask, don’t shun us out, we might surprise you…”  
Damn whoever thought that the ice warrior in front of him didn’t have feelings! His words had finally cut open a wound left alone for too much time to fester and in cutting it open they had already started to heal it. How he had longed for a family. For that sense of belonging, of acceptance that came from having brothers.  
But he wasn’t going to cry. Oh no! He had already lost part of his pride with his mouth hanging open in what could have passed for a lifelike impression of a dead fish…no more!  
“Are you quite done? Yes? Good, because in case you haven’t noticed we are on a tight schedule here…so let’s move… frate!”  
The Aquarius Saint had been ready to freeze the ungrateful idiot in that cell when he had heard the last word, whispered, somehow fearfully in the dark. Frate, brother in the Cancer Saint’s mother tongue. He could let him have his illusions, after all, that was exactly what brothers were there for!  
The terse sound of ice cracking had him look down at the chains and at the girl entrapped in them and, much like Death Mask before, he felt his heart crack at the sight.  
“Helena?”  
“Oh, I suppose you are his friend then…I don’t know you and I definitely don’t know who is this Helena, but if you free me I’ll be much obliged!”  
“But…”  
“Not now ice-man! She apparently doesn’t remember anything and even her appearance doesn’t really match, but I know it’s her, so the sooner we get out of here, the sooner we solve the mystery!”  
Not one to deny the pull of logic, even when it came from one of the most unlikely sources possible, the Ice Master broke the last of the bond and stood back, allowing his companion easy access to pick up the girl. After all if she had chosen to live with him on a semi-permanent basis, he was definitely the most suited to the task, plus he needed both hands to use his attacks.  
“C’mon, follow me then! We’ll try another exit, hoping they haven’t got that covered yet!”  
Nodding his acceptance at the plan – really where this logical Death Mask had come from? – he quickly followed the shorter man down the corridor and into what looked like a niche in the wall.  
Before he had the time to really protest the fact they were going into the fucking wall, the niche revealed itself to be a secret passage of sorts.  
From then on he was graced with far more images of Hell that he would ever be confortable with and not for the first time he asked himself how the Cancer Saint could really manage to stay in that house and his respect for the man rose again.  
In the meantime the object of the Aquarius musings was lost into musings of his own, regarding the small – too small! a voice in his head screamed – girl in his arms.  
Apart from the initial question about his person, this girl – he so wanted to call her Helena, but somehow he had a nasty feeling that she really wasn’t his Helena – had said nothing at all, while been manhandled by two complete strangers who had taken the scenery route coasting Hell. There had been no sparking of recognition in those bloody red eyes – so familiar because so similar to his own, yet so foreign at the same time – and all in all there had been no spark of anything at all in those orbs. Like a puppet whose strings had been cut she had folded on herself and let somebody else take her. And wasn’t that a frightening thought.  
Finally the route took a sharp right and they stood in front of a small door, outside of which they could see the gleaming light of the moon.  
With a nod to his companion Death Mask sprinted towards the exit, all the while praying Athena and every other deity he knew of, that nothing and no one was out there, waiting for them.  
“Well, well, well…what do we have here…a bunch of traitors! For once in your life Manigoldo you were right! These conniving bastards were in on the plan from the start! I knew our Goddess was too trusting for her own good…”  
And of course his bad luck had decided to manifest yet again here and with the worst possible form: Kardia of Scorpio was a sadistic bastard, one crazy enough to search for the ultimate enemy, the one to fire his heart to the ultimate state. And if the whimpering from the girl in his arms was any indication, she had already met the sadistic bastard and he had left her quite an impression. And not of the good kind.  
Judging from the blast of icy air at his back, the green glow of the sacred sword and the tell tale sign of galaxies exploding, he wasn’t the only one who had reached that conclusion.  
“Move away Scorpio before I decide to grace the Lord of the Underworld with your presence, and believe me, for what you have done to Helena, you won’t find a single Judge very forgiving…”  
“For what he has done to that pathetic excuse of a human being? Oh c’mon! I had thought you were more intelligent than that, but apparently I have reincarnated in a complete idiot…what a pity!”  
Oh yes…that corner of Hell was beginning to be shaped like Manigoldo all right!  
“Let her go Cancer or you’ll taste my sword!”  
“Your sword?! You pathetic goat! What do you think that rusty sword can really do against one who controls the dead?”  
Had he really been that stupid? Death Mask knew he had done a lot of idiocies in his life, but to insult Excalibur? No, he wasn’t that suicidal…yet.  
Moving quickly the young Cancer Saint had positioned himself right in front of Shura, hand closed in a fist, finger ready to send the souls to the Underworld.  
“ENOUGH! Stop it! All of you! Stop your fighting! She needs help!”  
At Sara’s words Death Mask looked down into his arms and true enough the night’s events had caught up to the girl who had fainted on him…wait…no…it couldn’t be!  
“She is not breathing!”  
“I have seen her soul at the Mouth of Hades!”  
The panicked yells had everyone jolting into action, even Kardia and Manigoldo whose orders where to keep the girl alive.  
“ANOTHER DIMENSION!”  
The black portal materialized in front of Death Mask and without prompting the silver haired warrior jumped inside, implicitly trusting his…brother…to take them where they needed to go.  
“Quickly all of you! Follow him!”  
The next thing he knew was a blinding light and a deafening noise like a million voices all talking together; but he had one goal, one person to find in that multitude and when his blood red eyes locked with the emeraldine ones he was looking for, all he could say was:  
“Save her Athena! Save her…”  
 


	10. Chapter 10

The world abruptly shifted into focus.  
Whoever had said that coming back to awareness was a slow and self adjusting process either had never experienced the sensation or he had deluded himself somehow.  
“You gave us quite a scare you know? Death Mask says that he is thankful that he already has silver hair or you would have given them to him last night…”  
Death Mask…the name was familiar…ah yes, the man with the aforementioned silver hair and strikingly red eyes that had somehow materialized in her cell and freed her. But, even though she knew she had never seen the man before, he, or at least his name, had been achingly familiar.  
As familiar as the woman in front of her in that very moment. Long, flowing violet hair and very green eyes, clothed in a white dress that left nothing to the imagination. She knew she had seen her somewhere…  
“Athena????”  
“You remember me Helena? Do you know my name?”  
The hopeful face was almost too much to disappoint but she knew she had to.  
“I know you are Athena, I have seen you when I have tried to kill you. You should know that…why are you here? With me? Alone? And who is this Helena? Because that’s certainly not me…I am not called Helena…in fact I don’t have a name…I am Ophiucus the Fallen…”  
The shattered look of dashed hopes was swiftly replaced with a positive murdering expression, that somehow wasn’t really directed at her.  
“You are not Fallen, Ophiucus! And I am here, with you, alone, because I trust you! I am not the one you tried to kill – I am a different incarnation but those details will have to wait – and even if I were I would never abandon you or condemn you to death because even if you don’t remember me, don’t remember us, you are my best friend and we are a family!”  
The girl was a little out of breath at the end of her tirade and she realized, with a sheepish smile, that she had ended up yelling right into the healing girl’s face.  
“Ups…sorry! I got a little carried away! I know you don’t remember being Helena, maybe you are right and you really are not the girl we are desperately looking for, but I have sensed your soul while I was healing you and you are not evil…yes I know…you tried to kill Athena, but somehow I sense that this was more a retribution for a past offence that had been done against you than a plot to kill the Goddess of Justice, am I right?”  
How in the world had this girl known?  
“You know?”  
Disbelief coloured her voice and panic began to rise from the depth of her soul.  
“I know that I have been an idiot, alongside everybody else…I know we have hurt you a long time ago Healer…we have dismissed your knowledge and your good heart and you were the one who had paid the price. It was through no fault of your own that your soul was tainted, twisted enough to transform all the good inside it in bad, all the love in hatred, all the affection in betrayal. When I met Helena, the Ophiucus Saint of the time I come from, I had thought that maybe, just maybe, the damage had been undone by time alone, and that my friendship could erase the rest, but I was wrong again. Even though Helena already forgave everybody for their transgressions against her, a part of her soul, your soul, never forgave and never forgot. And now somebody used that long standing hatred against her, against all of us and one more time she, you, are the innocent victim of this ploy. Forgive me, my friend, for I have failed you…again.”  
Ophiucus stood in silence after that confession, mind weighting the options and soul searching for a lie in that midst of heart-breaking sobs. But no lies were forthcoming, no manipulation of the truth to entrap him and enslave him once more.  
To forgive and forget.  
He had cultivated that hatred for centuries, biding his time, being bullied, ignored and cast aside for many a lifetime, and in all of that time his hatred had been the only thing keeping him together, alive.  
He could not part from it, not so suddenly, not without a guarantee that the things that had come to pass where not going to pass again.  
“I cannot forgive you now, nor I can forget. I have lived with these feelings for so long that I cannot simply shed them like old skin…” And again with that crestfallen look, the girl really had no shame!  
“…but, maybe, in time, things will change. I cannot promise you this epic friendship you all seem to have with this mysterious Helena, because I am not her, even though you all seem convinced of the contrary. But I can promise I will not kill you…yet…I promise to let you make your amends, and then decide if my soul is satisfied or if it requires your blood, Athena. Do we have a compromise?”  
“We do. I knew I couldn’t expect your forgiveness Ophiucus, but the fact you are willing to give us a chance means more to me than you will ever imagine. We, I, won’t disappoint you again my friend. And as for our missing friend, I know you are not her, but the others might have difficulty in conceiving that fact. They all miss her dearly, you know. So, please, don’t shun them away, they might be overbearing, but they are good souls deep down!”  
Bowing her head in acceptance the girl thought that concessions had to be made if a compromise was to be struck, so if her concession was to have people looking out for her, well maybe for once she hadn’t drawn the shortest stick.  
“Well, if you are up to it, there is one person who would very much like to see you…and no, before you refuse, she isn’t one of my overbearing good souls…”  
She couldn’t mean…  
“YOU! YOU IDIOTIC, OVERBEARING, ASININE, SELF-SACRIFICING CRETIN! How could you? EH? How could you decide to give yourself up for me? To suicide yourself in my name? and without even telling me first? ARE YOU COMPLITELY MAD???”  
Of all the things she had expected Sara to yell at her for, her sacrificing herself for the young girl hadn’t even made the list.  
“You are not mad I betrayed you? That I framed you? That I had befriended you just to use you a pawn in my assassination plan?”  
“Did you? Did you befriend me just to use me? Was nothing real then?”  
“Of course not! I admit I started out our friendship because Leandro said you were powerful enough to grant us access to Sanctuary, and you are very powerful, but as time progressed I…well I really wanted to be your friend, your sister even! I knew that what I was doing to you was wrong…hell I even started to understand that what I was about to do to Athena was wrong, and just because you had managed to break the wall outside my heart! I sacrificed myself and everything I had worked for, for the past decades, just to let you live! I had thought myself content if you had hated me for life, just as long as you were alive! So no, it wasn’t a ruse, you are my friend, even if you don’t want me to be yours…”  
“Oh, stop you useless yapping! You are my friend, my sister even! I was so mad at you, and I had thought I was mad because you had betrayed me, but in reality I was angry that you hadn’t confided in me, and scared that you were going to your death and I couldn’t do anything about it!”  
And at that, the Snake Master could only gape at his young charge with his mouth hanging open.  
“Well then…if that’s solved, we have more pressing matters to address: like, when do I start training with you?”  
“What? You want to train under me? I don’t really know if I am allowed to move…and why do you want to train with me? I am sure there are other Saints, even Gold ones, more qualified than I am…”  
Sara waved her hand through the air with an air on nonchalance.   
“Sure, there are…but you are a Gold Saint, you have a very powerful Cosmo, and I have already begin training under you…so I don’t see the problem. Plus I really cannot stand all the others Gold Saints of this time, and the ones from another time have categorically refused to train me, saying something about time ripples or such…”  
The convalescent girl looked helplessly at Athena, hoping she could dismiss such a ludicrous fantasy, but to no avail.  
“I think it’s a very good idea! I, for once, will not object to it, and I am pretty sure this time’s Athena won’t either! Good! That’s settled then!”  
Too chocked up to really express her thoughts the Fallen simply shook her head in fondness and gave a slight nod at her pupil.  
“Good, now that is settled there is a small matter to solve before we start: you are adamant you are not Helena, and I believe you, but we cannot call you Ophiucus the Fallen since it’s a mouthful, so what is your name?”  
Silence, the only answer she could really give. She might have had a name at the beginning, before becoming the vessel of the Snake Master, but she had long forgotten it.  
“Oh… you don’t know…no problem then! You’ll get a new one! What about…”  
She braced herself, expecting any kind of ridiculous names thrown at her when she heard the suggestion and she instantly loved it.  
“Yes, I will be Phi!”  
And at that the Goddess beamed, such a sunny smile that Phi privately thought it could illuminate the darkness.  
“Oh, one last thing: what happened to Leandro and his small band of assassins?”  
“…”  
“I had thought that the silver haired guy was scary, but not as scary as the effeminate one! I don’t think that anything is left of them…”  
“Oh…”  
“Oh yes, my dear Phi…Aphrodite can be very scary indeed!”


End file.
